Lets have a taste of AI insanity

[wildbillhdmax01]

Look, we get it, it's hard. I myself have been working on the AI for the last month or so with very little to show for it. In fact at this point I'm convinced that the mental toll the AI in this game has taken on me would be classifed as a war crime according to Geneva Conventions.

What I don't get is, why aren't more resources being diverted to this issue? The AI is THE BIGGEST problem of the game and after 8 months, we still have very, VERY little to show for it. I think I'm talking for the majority of the players when I say that; we'd much rather have seen a dedicated effort to finish (yes, finish) and fix the game with regular updates, than have numerous audio/visual DLCs and an expansion (which barely had stuff in it to justify as a paid expansion, as well as being overpriced) which many users believe should have come out with the game in the first place.

Paradox customers are a very well meaning and a fiercely loyal bunch. And when I see the studio abusing that affection over and over again by releasing unfinished and ungodly buggy games, then using the community as unpaid beta testers and fail to show the commitment to fix the problems and instead divert resources to create and release paid DLCs, I get frustrated and angry. I'm sick and tired of being taken advantage of you know? I've been with Paradox since 2007, buying your games and contributing to the community through mods and I will no longer accept the sorry excuse that Paradox is an indie studio that doesn't have the resources. Paradox have been selling literally millions of games that either they've made or are distributing. At this point I'm seeing it as greed and a lack of regard and respect for the customers.

So, please stop maklng us do your beta testing and bug reporting, especially to this extent. This is an unabashed extortion of our loyalty and good will. Even though many people are willing to help you make the game better, it doesn't change the fact that you're asking us to spend a significant amount of time and effort to find and report bugs for you and you simply have no right. You must, MUST do it yourselves, BEFORE the game is released. However now that the game is released with those bugs, you HAVE TO divert most of your resources to making the game whole. Some of the stuff that got through your internal bug reporting process are unlikely to have not been noticed and the very fact that the game was released with those glaring faults just further solidifies my understanding that either; Paradox have a very sub-par QA process or they just don't give a **** and are more worried about making money quickly than creating a satisfying and working product.You're charging $40 for this game. I mean have you even seen the other games in your price range? We're effectively overpaying for a game with the hope that it will get better in the future! Who does that?

P.S.: I want to make it clear that this is not directed at you or the developers' person. This is directed at Paradox as a whole. From your activities on the forums I get the feeling that you too are frustrated with the whole thing. Whoever the managers are at Paradox, I'm quite certain have no clue what the players are thinking about the game.


Trust me, no one who has played the game thinks it is fun, once the issues of the game crushes their rose tinted glasses. You needn't worry yourself about that. I myself have stopped playing the game for fun a long time ago and only boot it up to test possible solutions to the problems of the AI.

I'm glad someone finally said it.

I just can't play the game anymore. I got maybe 5 hours out of the new expansion. I quit 3 games so far.

When you're playing as Germany and see that your 4 Panzer divisions are doing most of the work in China you kinda just give up. After taking 3 of China's capitals all by your self with no help from Japan only to notice that all of south China doesn't have 1 division on the front line, you just get frustrated.

After 3 major patches I barely see any improvements in the AI. I see the same bugs and AI problems slip by patch after patch.

And no... I'm not submitting any bug reports. I already have 30 hours of beta testing patches alone. It's not my job as a customer to play Q/A and do your testing. I shouldn't have to spend significant amount of time and effort to report bugs for you. I understand that AI is hard work, but that's no excuses. I spent $90 to play a game not beta test it.

I got a bad feeling that this game is going to take a year or two after being released to get it right, and of courses with the help of the community.....

I've been very Loyal since I found Paradox back in 2012 with Hearts Of Iron 3 being my first game from them. You can look under my name and see for yourself how loyal I've been, but like @Ancalimé said I'm sick and tired of being taken advantage of.

After this, and Stellaris I'll never pre-order a game from you guys again, not even Victoria 3... Which breaks my heart to say.

@Ancalimé has made a lot of good points and I can only hope that more people, and Paradox see it.

 

[AlanC9]

I do have a strong opinion about the state of the game upon release. I do think its AI, as sold, is a disaster, and I'll stand by that opinion. It's in no way, a sleight at the development team; I've always felt they are the real victims in being forced to release and then support an unfinished, unready game by Paradox -- unless they do actually feel it was ready for mass consumption which I doubt. And I hold those who decided to release it in its unfinished state accountable.

It's also quite possible -- likely, even -- that the devs understand the Paradox development model and are OK with it.

 

[Taciturn Scot]

Yeah, it's not constructive to be cast as some self-righteous dissenter who is apparently very angry and very vocal -- only because I have a strong criticism of one of the core pieces of the game. I'm guessing it was meant to be some indirect blow toward me because I mentioned (God forbid) Reddit, albeit I was just mentioning another large community where the AI is frequently discussed and criticized. On the contrary, that community often shows off wonderful examples of how the Hearts of Iron series shines. If anything, my post history would show that up to now, I've been nearly silent with my criticism.

I do have a strong opinion about the state of the game upon release. I do think its AI, as sold, is a disaster, and I'll stand by that opinion. It's in no way, a sleight at the development team; I've always felt they are the real victims in being forced to release and then support an unfinished, unready game by Paradox -- unless they do actually feel it was ready for mass consumption which I doubt. And I hold those who decided to release it in its unfinished state accountable. I don't find anything wrong with that assessment. Hearts of Iron 4 is not the only game that was launched when it surely wasn't ready. I remember the juggernaut Battlefield 4 was a huge mess with its bugs, stability, and server issues, and much of it was reported on in the press. I found that to be fair. Electronic Arts must have learned something from that mess because their recent launch of Battlefield went much more smoothly and players are much more content -- although it's not perfect.

Nobody is asking for perfection here. We all knew the game would not have the level of polish the older entries in the series had after all their updates. I just didn't expect the level of incompetence when it came to the AI in nearly all aspects of the game -- production priorities, division spam, broken templates, abandoned fronts, suicide invasions, unnecessary DOW, lack of AI checks, etc. It was no way shape or form ready for release. It needed at least 8-12 months of work, judging by how its coming along (slowly but steadily) since the first patch. Without a competent AI, there is not a Hearts of Iron to me (I avoid MP like the plague).

And don't really see this as a DLC argument either. I've never held resentment over DLC releases -- for any game. One can research whether or not they think a DLC is worth it on their own. I'd just rather it would wait, or rather the release of the game wait, until it met some minimum threshold of quality.

And I understand how difficult and finicky of a job programming, so that's why I'd wish management would get on the ball here and give our poor boys, who have to rewrite entire portions of the code from what I've read, some additional help. From what I know, it's only 2-3 people working on the AI. How much could it possibly cost Paradox, a corporation that made $30M in profit last year, to hire a few more able-bodied individuals to help them on one of their flagship games?

I quote posters when I'm directing my remarks at them. It saves a lot of time and confusion so you guessed wrongly. May I ask you how well you researched your purchase of HOI4 before you paid for it? Why did you buy it was the disaster that you claim it to be? Not buying an unfinished product seems to me to be a much more effective way of holding those who decided to release it in its unfinished state accountable

Just to be clear, since strong emotion seems to cloud some people's reading comprehension and start distorting, spinning what was written to cast it in the worst possible light, constructive criticism is extremely helpful to the dev team, the 'real victims' here, as you portray them. Gaga Extrem was helping maurel to report an issue in a manner which would help them to pinpoint the problem and have a real stab at fixing the issue. And look what happened. That was what prompted my post

I do not frequent many discussion boards on the Internet. I generally only post on the better of them, like this one where we are expected to conduct ourselves in a somewhat more respectable manner and there also happen to be some excellent, mature and learned discussions. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of these angry posters that you find on Reddit and Steam also post here. Angry folks are more motivated to go round as many sites as they can find online to post the same vitriol everywhere and to persuade their friends not to buy something.

I almost choked on this point. A priority, huh?

Finally, from your earlier post, what part of building a close relationship with their customers made you choke? I would say they they are the best studio at building a relationship with their customers that I've seen. I'm certainly open to the possibility that there are other studios that do it better but I haven't seen them They have also asked us how they can improve their communication with us in that TFV DD where they presented the Blitz option.

 

[killswitch]

May I ask you how well you researched your purchase of HOI4 before you paid for it? Why did you buy it was the disaster that you claim it to be? Not buying an unfinished product seems to me to be a much more effective way of holding those who decided to release it in its unfinished state accountable

I would assume, that like myself, the extent to which Moser researched their purchase was made on the information released to us by the development team. DD's and videos on YT (which in retrospect seem to be unfairly skewed towards MP)

We can only make informed decisions based on the evidence that was presented to us... I think this is a little unfair of you to say that we should have known before purchase.
I used to pirate games before I found a job and was able to afford these games, these kinds of capital expenditures. That is an effective way I suppose, to assure myself of my purchase however, I like to feel like Im helping in a way to making these games. Not in a developmental sense, obviously, but in what way I can help. I refuse to go back to the way I used to operate: stealing someone's craft, in order to try before I buy. Often I would just forgo buying afterwards.. That's not the way forwards for me.

I want reward these people, not punish them. But in order for this consumer/producer relationship to progress criticisms must be heard and respected.

Just to be clear, since strong emotion seems to cloud some people's reading comprehension and start distorting, spinning what was written to cast it in the worst possible light, constructive criticism is extremely helpful to the dev team, the 'real victims' here, as you portray them. Gaga Extrem was helping maurel to report an issue in a manner which would help them to pinpoint the problem and have a real stab at fixing the issue. And look what happened. That was what prompted my post

You will need to become more familiar with the community here. We are a passionate bunch. I know this from experiances here and on other sites (Looking at You Order of Paradoxians, you CN bastards know who you are...) Many of us (yourself included it appears) have invested allot of money into this company. And I am devoted to them. I know they are the best, I expect them to be the best. They are "my" company. I take allot of pride in Paradox. And I want things to run smoothly, these latest devlopments are unnesscessary potholes in a road I hoped had been smoothed along time ago after EU IV and CK II.


Also again if you think we are bad the Eastern Europeans can be worse


You are missing the point. We are not the testers, we are the consumers. I did not pay this amount of money in order to be the Guinea pig. I pay to play. To enjoy the experience of a world war two setting. We are being presented with half finished products and I dont think thats fair. I have been complaining about this for years.

I do not frequent many discussion boards on the Internet. I generally only post on the better of them, like this one where we are expected to conduct ourselves in a somewhat more respectable manner and there also happen to be some excellent, mature and learned discussions. But I wouldn't be surprised if some of these angry posters that you find on Reddit and Steam also post here. Angry folks are more motivated to go round as many sites as they can find online to post the same vitriol everywhere and to persuade their friends not to buy something.

This isn't anger it is passion. You shouldn't take passionate arguments as personal slights against your tastes. This game doesn't define you personally and neither does our criticism of it either.

Finally, from your earlier post, what part of building a close relationship with their customers made you choke? I would say they they are the best studio at building a relationship with their customers that I've seen. I'm certainly open to the possibility that there are other studios that do it better but I haven't seen them They have also asked us how they can improve their communication with us in that TFV DD where they presented the Blitz option.

I agree.



As an aside: I'm not trying to debate you, I respect what you say, 100% but I felt the need to reply. I apologise if in the past couple of posts I have caused offense (or in this one...no doubt, I shall look back and think I should have phrased something differently, it happens, its the internet haha ) But please don't write us off as trolls or vitriolic.. I am not a troll. I am a fan. I am a customer. And I have my loyalties.

Never mistake my passion for anger. We're just so damn hopeful for the future we dont want to repeat the mistakes of the past. And I hope Pdox can agree with that at least.

 

[COMnts]

A lot of similar feelings here; but I'd be much more understanding if features which were supposed to be in at release (blitz) we're paid DLC, I will never forget that.

I often wonder if at least some of the issues are due most of the dev's playtime being their massive multiplayer game. Most of the major issues with the game are hidden when every major power is played by a human.

 

[Moser]

I quote posters when I'm directing my remarks at them. It saves a lot of time and confusion so you guessed wrongly. May I ask you how well you researched your purchase of HOI4 before you paid for it? Why did you buy it was the disaster that you claim it to be? Not buying an unfinished product seems to me to be a much more effective way of holding those who decided to release it in its unfinished state accountable

My mistake, and I apologize. I had felt I was thrown into the same lot. As for research before I purchased? I purchased it on June 6th provided with the information given to me by the company. I then played (and modded it) it for several months before I arrived at my own conclusions. And you're certainly correct. I won't be purchasing their next major release.

Just to be clear, since strong emotion seems to cloud some people's reading comprehension and start distorting, spinning what was written to cast it in the worst possible light, constructive criticism is extremely helpful to the dev team, the 'real victims' here, as you portray them. Gaga Extrem was helping maurel to report an issue in a manner which would help them to pinpoint the problem and have a real stab at fixing the issue. And look what happened. That was what prompted my post

And I took no issue with that -- nor even brought it up. I actually felt it was gallant.

But I wouldn't be surprised if some of these angry posters that you find on Reddit and Steam also post here. Angry folks are more motivated to go round as many sites as they can find online to post the same vitriol everywhere and to persuade their friends not to buy something.

Maybe. I couldn't know. I can only speak for my own intentions.

Finally, from your earlier post, what part of building a close relationship with their customers made you choke? I would say they they are the best studio at building a relationship with their customers that I've seen. I'm certainly open to the possibility that there are other studios that do it better but I haven't seen them They have also asked us how they can improve their communication with us in that TFV DD where they presented the Blitz option.

I can certainly answer that. I believe the developer studio is great at communication and building relations with its players. I have every reason to believe the developers strive toward this goal.

On the other hand, I feel the publishing arm takes for granted its customers when it knowingly releases a greatly flawed, half-baked product for mass consumption when it needs the better part of a year of more development. It's irresponsible and to a small degree comes across as unethical, or at least breaches my code of ethics. In my view, this is how distrust is proliferated through a customer base. From over the months, I sensed that the development team is also bit overwhelmed with the amount of error fixing -- the tone of the last patch is that only land based AI could be worked on -- they are stretched too thin to even look at the naval and air warfare aspects of the war. This does not inspire my confidence with upper management. It seems the development team is aware of problems, but is too undermanned to begin working on them. Meanwhile, corporate is celebrating its successes and increases in profits to shareholders, while we wait patiently for features sold to us to work properly. It comes off leaving a bad taste in my mouth. It feels not everything is being done to work out these problems. I stand by that opinion.

It's also quite possible -- likely, even -- that the devs understand the Paradox development model and are OK with it.

I would really hope not. It would just make their lives harder.

 

[Taciturn Scot]

I would assume, that like myself, the extent to which Moser researched their purchase was made on the information released to us by the development team. DD's and videos on YT (which in retrospect seem to be unfairly skewed towards MP)

We can only make informed decisions based on the evidence that was presented to us... I think this is a little unfair of you to say that we should have known before purchase.
I used to pirate games before I found a job and was able to afford these games, these kinds of capital expenditures. That is an effective way I suppose, to assure myself of my purchase however, I like to feel like Im helping in a way to making these games. Not in a developmental sense, obviously, but in what way I can help. I refuse to go back to the way I used to operate: stealing someone's craft, in order to try before I buy. Often I would just forgo buying afterwards.. That's not the way forwards for me.

I want reward these people, not punish them. But in order for this consumer/producer relationship to progress criticisms must be heard and respected.

You will need to become more familiar with the community here. We are a passionate bunch. I know this from experiances here and on other sites (Looking at You Order of Paradoxians, you CN bastards know who you are...) Many of us (yourself included it appears) have invested allot of money into this company. And I am devoted to them. I know they are the best, I expect them to be the best. They are "my" company. I take allot of pride in Paradox. And I want things to run smoothly, these latest devlopments are unnesscessary potholes in a road I hoped had been smoothed along time ago after EU IV and CK II.

Also again if you think we are bad the Eastern Europeans can be worse

You are missing the point. We are not the testers, we are the consumers. I did not pay this amount of money in order to be the Guinea pig. I pay to play. To enjoy the experience of a world war two setting. We are being presented with half finished products and I dont think thats fair. I have been complaining about this for years.

This isn't anger it is passion. You shouldn't take passionate arguments as personal slights against your tastes. This game doesn't define you personally and neither does our criticism of it either.

I agree.

As an aside: I'm not trying to debate you, I respect what you say, 100% but I felt the need to reply. I apologise if in the past couple of posts I have caused offense (or in this one...no doubt, I shall look back and think I should have phrased something differently, it happens, its the internet haha ) But please don't write us off as trolls or vitriolic.. I am not a troll. I am a fan. I am a customer. And I have my loyalties.

Never mistake my passion for anger. We're just so damn hopeful for the future we dont want to repeat the mistakes of the past. And I hope Pdox can agree with that at least.

Thanks for the reply. I much prefer when people actually take the time to post why they disagree with my posts.

I too read all the DDs and watched the SP videos prior to release and made my purchase with my eyes wide open and, as a result, I'm happy with my purchase and not angry and more than willing to report issues in the manner the devs would like me to. I saw the condition of the AI in both the Let's Plays and the tutorial videos prior to release. For one, Daniels' Hungary Games playthrough was SP for example showed me the state of the AI as did others so it is unfair to say that what we were being presented with was skewed. I didn't watch a single MP Let's Play because I don't play online and so anything seen there would be useless to me, a dedicated and passionate SP. Why would any equally or more passionate SP not think likewise? There was plenty of debate and concern expressed on these boards over these issues with the AI but many of these concerned folks had already handed over their money. Why? I'm not convinced that people are making informed purchase decisions at all.

I'm not missing anything with regards to us Paying to Beta Test either. We're not. It's a failure to understand the business model. We're consciously buying something that we know (hope) that is going to be worked on after release. It's hardly a new thing and I don't see any need to say anything more as it's so bleedin' obvious and Paradox are famous, or notorious depending on your outlook, for it. Why are people buying/ PRE-ORDERING these games from Paradox when they hate this model so much?

Further, I am passionate about these games too but I'm not angry with Paradox. I don't mistake passion for anger. They are two different things. The 'having a go' at Gaga Extreme when he was trying to help a poster in this thread who is genuinely interested in presenting his feedback in a constructive manner, (i.e, he is passionate about the game.) was not passion. It was, as I called it, anger and frustration. That's not constructive or helpful other than being cathartic to the poster. It's divisive and harms the community and, as the developers have repeatedly told us, it doesn't help them at all.

 

[Luis Pocho]

in the end the answer always is "its very hard to fix and we dont have enough people to fix it fast"... hiring devs must be super expensive

 

[BjornB]

in the end the answer always is "its very hard to fix and we dont have enough people to fix it fast"... hiring devs must be super expensive

I think it's been established in the numerous threads that are very similar to what this has become: throwing money at the situation won't necessary help.

The problem is, as stated many times before, that AI programming is very complex. Whenever you change the smallest thing to fix one problem, it most likely breaks something else. In most cases it breaks even more stuff, so fixing one problem causes X number of new ones :/ It's a slow process to adjust, test, adjust some more, etc.

 

[Meglok]

I think it's been established in the numerous threads that are very similar to what this has become: throwing money at the situation won't necessary help.

The problem is, as stated many times before, that AI programming is very complex. Whenever you change the smallest thing to fix one problem, it most likely breaks something else. In most cases it breaks even more stuff, so fixing one problem causes X number of new ones :/ It's a slow process to adjust, test, adjust some more, etc.

Well, when y'all get around to it, let us know when the hot fix is coming out to fix the problems 1.3 created. Starting with the air field overcrowding and the disappearing divisions. Right now single player play isn't worth my time.

 

[Taciturn Scot]

LOL. A developer actually took time to inform us that the solutions to these issues are not as easy as some folks want them to be. (And he did this while on holiday too.) And within the first hour, somebody has Respectfully Disagreed with his post. Seems to me that some folks have closed their minds and can't be swayed from their emotional take on the matter. They're not coming here to learn, to educate themselves or help the community in any way (or even to post in some people's cases, LOL). They are simply mad and will down-vote any post from whatever source that doesn't agree with their negative mindset, even if it's a developer himself. They know better. But at least they're happy.

Welcome to 2017. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.

 

[Dario50]

 

[Searry]

I think the feelings of disappointment come from the years of succesful games pdx put out after the disaster which HOI3 was. Once the customers were used to a more higher standard of quality, the feelings turned to disillusionment, anger and other such strong feelings.
I think it's perfectly understandable to expect quality from pdx now and once they do not deliver the standard quality, there's going to be a highly negative reaction.
As to why the game was released in it's state, I cannot say, but there should have been some kind of forewarning to what customers were to expect. Maybe an early access label.

 

[Taciturn Scot]

I think the feelings of disappointment come from the years of succesful games pdx put out after the disaster which HOI3 was. Once the customers were used to a more higher standard of quality, the feelings turned to disillusionment, anger and other such strong feelings.
I think it's perfectly understandable to expect quality from pdx now and once they do not deliver the standard quality, there's going to be a highly negative reaction.
As to why the game was released in it's state, I cannot say, but there should have been some kind of forewarning to what customers were to expect. Maybe an early access label.

I happen to be one of those long term customers as well yet I'm happy. I don't have feelings of disappointment, disillusionment or anger. Why not?

 

[Searry]

I happen to be one of those long term customers as well yet I'm happy. I don't have feelings of disappointment, disillusionment or anger. Why not?

Some people do, some people do not. Maybe you're accustomed to lesser quality. Personally I loath the garbage they put in steam and call games.

 

[Moser]

As to why the game was released in it's state, I cannot say, but there should have been some kind of forewarning to what customers were to expect. Maybe an early access label.

Just some candor leading up to June would have gone a long way. Something like "Listen, the game is just not in a state yet that you'll be satisfied with. We still have quite a few things to work out and we'll likely not be able to delay until Q4 when all the big boys launch their Christmas games. So we'll release HOI IV as an early access in June where we can gather feedback from the community and improve it, be warned that it won't be in a complete state, but hopefully it'll be in great shape for a soft launch in Q1 or Q2 of 2017."

That would have been so understandable and responsible, but apparently that was not on the table after the two previous delays.

The problem is, as stated many times before, that AI programming is very complex. Whenever you change the smallest thing to fix one problem, it most likely breaks something else. In most cases it breaks even more stuff, so fixing one problem causes X number of new ones :/ It's a slow process to adjust, test, adjust some more, etc.

And that's why it should have been delayed until 2017, because it takes time to iron out these problems. I would have little problem in knowing what I was getting into if this game was first advertised as early access.

 

[Redz28]

My game as Germany was going great, just launched the invasion of the Soviet Union...when I made the mistake of calling Romania into help. Little did I know they had maybe 3 divisions tops in their homeland. Needless to say, that ruined my game when the SU walked unopposed into Romania.

 

[sturnado]

SP in HoI4 is good for one thing: testing opening MP strats.

The AI bugs and numerous other bugs are far too severe to ever be able to enjoy a SP game, and every time we report this stuff a dev replies with something like "Wow, I've never ever seen that happen before, would you please send us save game files?"

I refuse to believe y'all haven't seen these things happen before, like the air field overcrowding, the vanishing Anschluss divisions, the AI abandoning entire fronts, the AI sending its entire army away as expeditionary forces and then declaring war on a neighboring country, etc. They happen literally EVERY GAME.

I'm a new Paradox customer so I don't know what it was like in the past with your releases. Stellaris and HoI4 were my first strategy purchases from your company, followed by EUIV. Your games can be fun, I'll give you that, but there are just too many negatives to ignore here.

1. The AI is broken. This isn't up for debate, this is a fact. It's so broken that, for a challenge, I need to play MP games. This leads me to my next point.
2. You dragged your feet again and again when it came to fixing something majorly broken in multiplayer matches, namely the shadow factories. It literally took months before a fix was released - given the horrible state of the game's AI, this is inexcusable.
3. You tried to sell us things like a blitz command in your vapid and shallow DLC. No.
4. Seriously, focus trees and request lend lease and a blitz command for $15? No, no, no. If you want to see DLC done right, look at the Witcher 3.
5. You want us to do half your work to fix your game's problems. Again, no. We paid you money, fix it yourselves using your own resources.
6. When you do attempt to fix things, you create more issues. All your AI "upgrades" have now completely broken the air war. How many months do you expect us to wait for a fix for that?

I really wanted to find a new series of strategy games after seeing what Creative Assembly did to the Total War franchise (it's DLC-Hell now).

After dealing with the issues in HoI4 for eight months, and seeing how many issues are either new or still ongoing, I've decided y'all aren't getting another dime from me.

Sorry things didn't work out.

It's not me, it's you.

 

[Ancalimé]

LOL. A developer actually took time to inform us that the solutions to these issues are not as easy as some folks want them to be. (And he did this while on holiday too.) And within the first hour, somebody has Respectfully Disagreed with his post. Seems to me that some folks have closed their minds and can't be swayed from their emotional take on the matter. They're not coming here to learn, to educate themselves or help the community in any way (or even to post in some people's cases, LOL). They are simply mad and will down-vote any post from whatever source that doesn't agree with their negative mindset, even if it's a developer himself. They know better. But at least they're happy.

Welcome to 2017. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.

I've about had enough of your blatant attempts to turn this into an "us against them" issue with your rhetoric.
You're painting a whole group of people as "angry, whiny, spoiled brats who can't shut up and enjoy a game". Give up. We know what we are frustrated about and it's not simply a case of being unable to appreciate the game.

Yes, we know their initial releases leave a lot to be desired.
Yes, we know it's Paradox's policy to release a game, then saturate the title with dozens of DLCs (even though it only started happening only recently).
Yes, we know it's been the case for a number of years.

It doesn't matter. Those are not the underlying issues. You seem like a clever fellow, so you might have been able to see why people are disgruntled, if you chose to understand rather than attack and paint a whole portion of the community with a broad, patronising brush.

The very fact that Paradox has been doing this for years is not a good enough reason to be satisfied with their product, not by a long shot.
Their own studio games had always had a patchy initial release, but they were rarely unplayable to this extent and for this long. For god's sake, just go and compare patch notes between HoI2 and HoI4; the difference is simply huge. What's more, in HoI2 patch1.2 they added new stuff to the game like "large amounts of pictures" and "ministers, leaders & techteams to almost every nation" amongst other things. TfV has basically done the same, but with a $15 price tag.
With HoI3 came four exhaustive patches before the first expansion pack was released.

So when you look at their previous releases you see that in fact, this has not always been how Paradox had conducted themselves. In the past, they allocated more time and effort to fixing the game first and releasing DLCs second. HoI4 is in the worst state Paradox has ever released a game, but despite this, they seem to allocate more resources to DLCs and expansions, before fixing the biggest problem their game has. THIS is the biggest problem we have. People already paid (significantly) more than they had for any other previous release of a HoI game AND for a HoI game that is at it worst state upon release, and to add insult to injury, they now find themselves in the unenviable position of having to pay even more for stuff that only marginally improves the game and does nothing or very little to fix some of the biggest problems it has.

This is an abominable breach of trust between the customers, nay, fans and the studio. We have tolerated less than perfect releases in the past and bought the expansions afterwards, because Paradox has shown us that they were commited to fixing the game first, before releasing satisfying expansions and they mostly succeeded at it. We trusted them to do the same with this release, but after 8 months we have 3 patches that doesn't even come close to fixing the biggest problems the game has, numerous useless DLCs and a major expansion that doesn't deserve the name and would have been released as part of a free patch in the past.

The "ongoing support through patches" is a marketing term that insults the intelligence of customers. It is unacceptable to release games that barely hold together and then claim that "it is a business model that the fans want". I'm sorry, but piss off. Nobody wants that. We tolerated it in the past because Paradox was a small indie company with a handful of staff in a shed. Today, Paradox is a multi-millon dollar company with a handful of staff in a million dollar office building. The only way it would be acceptable to release games in this sorry state and then take years to fix is if they priced it at ~$10 with the words "EARLY ACCESS" written over it in big, bold letters. Earlier HoI games released a number of full patches in the first year, adding new stuff and fixing most of the games issues, before they released an expansion pack.

Do you now understand why people are unhappy? It is not about "this has always been the way", because it has not been. It is about a breach of trust between the studio and the fans. Most people who express their dissent in social media platforms and in the forums are long time fans. They tolerated this business model for years because they always saw an effort on the studio's part that they were working hard to fix the issues. They are not seeing that approach anymore. This whole releasing an expansion before fixing the issues fiasco, added to the fact that the said expansion barely deserved the name and included stuff that the fans were used to getting as part of a free patch (and rightly so) has violently shaken people's belief that Paradox was acting honestly and to the users' benefit. Though not announced publicly, we understand from bits and pieces in the devs' comments in the forums that releasing an expansion was a priority and that there's only one guy working full time on the AI. That just saddens me.

I, and apparently many like me, are deeply disappointed with Paradox.
This is why we take to the forums and vent our grievances, because we want the studio to hear us and change their behaviour before it is too late.

Oh and one last thing: I hear people like yourself keep uttering the same thing over and over; "don't buy the DLCs/expansions/game if you don't like it". That betrays a clear ignorance about psychology and economics. See there's this thing called sunk cost fallacy and that is why people keep buying DLCs and expansions even when they are unsatisfied with the game. They are hoping that by buying those stuff, they'll eventually have something that is enjoyable. This is also how most "free-to-play" games that sell gems and shit make their money. We don't want Paradox games to be like that and that includes you as well. We don't want to buy dozens of DLCs and expansions when the game is released unfinished and the only way to make it finished is through buying those stuff. HoI4 is showing clear signs of that approach. We really, really don't want that.

 

[wildbillhdmax01]

I think it's been established in the numerous threads that are very similar to what this has become: throwing money at the situation won't necessary help.

I'm sorry, but that's a ridiculous excuse.

I live in Michigan, that would be like a plant manager say you don't need Impact Wrenches, or Impact drivers because they wont improve productivity. You can just keep using your manual Wrenches, and Drills etc...etc... Or saying putting more manpower on this job wont help you.

Somebody said on here that he looked through the Credits, and said there was only one person on AI. I'm not sure how true that is. But I keep hearing over and over again on the forums that there's only one AI programmer on the Team, or at least only one full time.

Are you really saying that more AI programmers wont help? Getting more manpower wont do anything?

You have to understand that you're obviously under maned, and under resourced. You're not an indie dev anymore you're a multi-million dollar studio, releasing multi-million dollar games according to that report posted earlier. So you can't hide behind that excuse while advertising yourself as a multi-million dollar AAA studio to investors.